寂寞，是火車疾駛而過的風景顫動，也是火爐散發的灼熱觸感；一景一物，在慕勒的固定鏡頭、精準構圖與鬱蒼色調下，瀰漫沉重孤寂感，映照瑪莉安的內心世界。因突然覺醒丈夫會離她而去，瑪莉安決定先行拋棄他，與孩子在巴黎鄉郊展開獨立生活，在翻譯福樓拜的著作中尋覓到自由與喜樂，在悠悠天地重新發掘自我。由雲溫達斯監製，《歧路》（1975）、《柏林蒼穹下》（1987）的編劇彼得漢奇首執導筒，親自將同名小說搬上銀幕，拍出女性擺脫喧鬧世界的倥傯。孤獨，也可以是一種選擇。

A beautiful, nameless woman is hired to spend several days and nights with a man in his apartment. Not only does he want to sleep with her, but he is obsessed with the desire to look at her naked body. A philosophical dialogue develops between the man who relates his thoughts and writes them down and the woman who explains to him the causes of his 'lethal sickness'. After the woman has left, the narrator and observer, dressed in black, appears. It is Peter Handke, the poet. Film essay about the man - woman relationship: 'Peter Handke's most personal, most permissive and at the same time, most reserved film.